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The Cossacks played a role in re-awakening a Ukrainian sense of identity within the steppe region.[2] A dominant figure within the Cossack movement and in Ukrainian nationalist history, Bohdan Khmelnytsky (c. 1595 – 1657), commanded the Zaporozhian Cossacks and led the Khmelnytsky Uprising against Polish rule in the mid-17th century. Khmelnytsky also succeeded in legitimizing a form of democracy which had been practiced by cossacks since the 15th century.[3] This sense of democracy played a key part of the sense of ethnic identity.[citation needed] Bohdan Khmelnytsky spoke of the liberation of the "entire Ruthenian people" and recent research has confirmed that the concept of a Ruthenian nation as a religious and cultural community had existed before his revolution.[4] Modern Ukrainians still remember and glorify Khmelnytsky's role in the history of Ukraine.

One of the most prominent figures in Ukrainian national history, the Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko, voiced ideas of an independent and sovereign Ukraine in the 19th century.[7] Taras Shevchenko used poetry to inspire cultural revival to the Ukrainian people and to strive to overthrow injustice.[7] Shevchenko died in Saint Petersburg on March 10, 1861, the day after his 47th birthday. Ukrainians - not only the citizens of Ukraine, but Ukrainians who live throughout the world - regard him as a national hero. His collection of poetry Kobzar was the second book in almost every Ukrainian household in the beginning of 20th century (after the Bible). He became a symbol of the national cultural revival of Ukraine.

Beside Shevchenko numerous other poets have written in Ukrainian. Among them, Volodymyr Sosyura in his poem Love Ukraine (1944) stated that one cannot respect other nations without respect for one's own.

Postcard published by the Ukrainian Brigade, “United Ukrainians fighting both Polish and Russian forces”, 1920.

With the collapse of the Russian Empire a political entity which encompassed political, community, cultural, and professional organizations was established in Kiev from the initiative from the Association of the Ukrainian Progressionists (abbr. TUP). This entity was called the "Tsentralna Rada" (Central Council) and was headed by the historian, Mykhailo Hrushevskyi.[8] On January 22, 1918, the Tsentralna Rada declared Ukraine an independent country.[8] This independence was recognized by the Russian government headed by Lenin, as well as the Central Powers and other states.[9] However, this government did not survive very long because of pressures not only from Denikin's Russian White Guard, but also the Red Army, German and Entente intervention, and local anarchists such as Nestor Makhno and (Green Army of Otaman Zeleny).[8]

Territory that was claimed by Ukraine according to an old postcard dating 1919

As Bolshevik rule took hold in Ukraine, the early Soviet government had its own reasons to encourage the national movements of the former Russian Empire.

Until the early-1930s, Ukrainian culture enjoyed a widespread revival due to Bolshevik concessions known as the policy of Korenization ("indigenization"). In these years an impressive Ukrainization program was implemented throughout the republic. In such conditions, the Ukrainian national idea initially continued to develop and even spread to a large territory with traditionally mixed population in the east and south that became part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.

At the same time, despite the ongoing Soviet-wide anti-religious campaign, the Ukrainian national Orthodox Church was created, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. The church was initially seen by the Bolshevik government as a tool in their goal to suppress the Russian Orthodox Church, always viewed with great suspicion by the regime for its being the cornerstone of the defunct Russian Empire and the initially strong opposition it took towards the regime change. Therefore, the government tolerated the new Ukrainian national church for some time and the UAOC gained a wide following among the Ukrainian peasantry.

These events greatly raised the national consciousness among the Ukrainians and brought about the development of a new generation of Ukrainian cultural and political elite. This in turn raised the concerns of Joseph Stalin, who saw danger in the Ukrainians' loyalty towards their nation competing with their loyalty to the Soviet State and in early 1930s the "Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism" was declared to be the primary problem in Ukraine. The Ukrainization policies were abruptly and bloodily reversed, most of the Ukrainian cultural and political elite was arrested and executed, and the nation was decimated with the famine called the Holodomor.

After World War I, lands of what is today Western Ukraine were incorporated into newly restored Poland.
Tadeusz Hołówko died in Truskawiec (Truskavets) on August 29, 1931, one of the first victims of an assassination campaign carried out by militants of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN).
On 15 June 1934, Bronisław Pieracki was assassinated by a Ukrainian nationalist from the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.

With the outbreak of war between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1941, many nationalists in Ukraine thought that they would have an opportunity to create an independent country once again. An entire Ukrainian volunteer division of the SS had been created.

Many of the fighters who had originally looked to the Nazis as liberators, quickly became disillusioned and formed the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) (Ukrainian: Українська Повстанська Армія - У.П.А.), which waged military campaign against Germans and later Soviet forces.[10] The primary goal of OUN was “the rebirth, of setting everything in order, the defense and the expansion of the Independent Council of Ukrainian National State”. OUN also revived the sentiment that “Ukraine is for Ukrainians”.[11]

Ukrainian nationalists demonstrate against Soviet Union and for a free Ukraine in 1941.

The UPA was a military group that took up arms first against the Nazis and later against the Soviets. During World War II, the UPA fought against the Polish, German and Soviet forces. After the Second World War, UPA took actions directed against Soviet rule within Ukraine. Many members of the UPA saw themselves as the armed wing of the OUN in its struggle for Ukrainian independence.[13]

There has been much debate as to the legitimacy of UPA as a political group. UPA maintains a prominent and symbolic role in Ukrainian history and the quest for Ukrainian independence.[14] At the same time it was deemed an insurgent or terrorist group by Soviet historiography.[14]

Euromaidan activists wave Ukraine's official flag, the flag of the Ukrainian People's Self-Defense and a red and black flag used by multiple nationalist organizations vying for Ukraine's independence after both World Wars, it dates back all the way to Ukraine's 16th century, March 2014

The topic of Ukrainian nationalism and its alleged relationship to Neo-Nazism came to the fore in polemics about the more radical elements involved in the Euromaidan protests and subsequent Ukrainian crisis from 2013 onward. Russian media has attempted to portray the Ukrainian party in the conflict as Nazi, while at the same time key ideologies in the pro-Russian side, such as the former National Bolshevik-figure Aleksandr Dugin themselves claim intellectual influence from the likes of Heinrich Himmler of the Waffen-SS. The main Ukrainian organisations involved with a neo-Banderaite legacy are Svoboda, Right Sector and Azov Battalion.

In 1991 Svoboda was founded as the 'Social-National Party of Ukraine'.[36] The party combined radical nationalism and alleged neo-Nazi features.[37] It was renamed and rebranded 13 years later as 'All-Ukrainian Association Svoboda' in 2004 under Oleh Tyahnybok. Political scientists Olexiy Haran and Alexander J. Motyl contend that Svoboda is radical rather than fascist and they also argue that it has more similarities with Far-Right movements like the Tea Party than it has with either fascists or neo-Nazis.[38][39] In 2005 Victor Yushchenko appointed Volodymyr Viatrovych head of the Ukrainian security service (SBU) archives. According to Professor Per Anders Rudling, this not only allowed Viatrovych to sanitize ultra nationalist history, but it also allowed him to officially promote its dissemination along with OUN(b) ideology which is based on 'ethnic purity' coupled with anti-Russian, anti-Polish and anti-semitic rhetoric.[40]:229–230 The extreme right wing now capitalizes on 'Yushchenkoist' propaganda initiatives.[40]:235 This includes Iuryi Mykhal'chyshyn, an ideologue who proudly confesses that he is a part of the fascist tradition.[40]:240 The autonomous nationalists focus on recruiting young people, participating in violent actions, and advocating "anti-bourgeoism, anti-capitalism, anti-globalism, anti-democratism, anti-liberalism, anti-bureaucratism, anti-dogmatism". In 2009 Svoboda fetched 34,7% of the votes in the Ternopil Oblast local elections. Svoboda was part of a right wing Alliance of European National Movements until it withdrew from the organization in 2014.[40][41]
Per Anders Rulig has suggested that "Viktor Yanukovych has indirectly aided Svoboda" by "granting Svoboda representatives disproportionate attention in the media".[40]:247

In Soviet ideology there exists the concept of Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism (UBN) (Ukrainian: Український буржуазний націоналізм, (УБН)). This nationalism was presented as a form of an anti-socialist and counterrevolutionary, "bourgeois" movement. All counter-revolutionary activities were persecuted by the Article 58 of the 1922 Russian Criminal Code. The definition of Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism was well put in the foreword of a Soviet book from the 1950s "Under foreign flags" by Volodymyr Byelyayev. The book claimed that Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism was invented by the "archenemy" of the Ukrainian people, the historian Mykhailo Hrushevsky, whom the author claimed to have been a German spy. Hrushevsky enjoyed great political and public popularity and respect, so the Soviet government resorted to negative public relations against him. These accusations were recently reiterated by the doctor of historical sciences Vitaliy Sarbei who was published by the Russian information agency "Rosbalt" (February 2011). The book "Under foreign flags" gives the following definition of Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism:

Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism is the ideology and politics of the Ukrainian bourgeoisie. Exploiting society, the social base of Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism was a stratum made up of all urban and rural bourgeoisie starting from the big capitalists, owners of big industrial enterprise, and finishing with numerous layers of the bourgeois class under capitalism, kurkul. The economical base for the growth of Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism in the epoch of imperialism is the same as for that of any nationality, that is, the increase of imperialist competition for sales markets and raw materials.

The term first appeared in the 1920s in the documents of the Communist Party and spread into Soviet journalism and science literature. It was needed as an ideological device. Similarly, Soviet historiography equated Ukrainian nationalism with fascism and with Nazism despite the fact that racism and cult of personality were extrinsic to Ukrainian nationalism, which was its distinction.

Alexander J. Motyl, "The turn to the right : the ideological origins and development of Ukrainian nationalism, 1919-1929", Published: Boulder, [Colo. : East European quarterly] ; New York : distributed by Columbia University Press, 1980, ISBN0-914710-58-3